An image or a hundred words

They say that an image, a photograph, says more than a hundred words, and that is true.

But what it does say, as in every art, it’s up to the beholder. Every message, every tale is interpreted by who receives it, who processes it in the way he prefers. Because of this, art prescinds from the medium used by the artist, and glides into sensorial perception. And because of this, communication by images is so prone to manipulation.

Being it advertisement, journalism, entertainment, every image that is not merely fine art is prone to be exploited or twisted.

We live in a world where our sight is bombarded with images of any kind from awakening to sleep, even milk boxes, bus sides, official letters saturate us with images supposedly funneling our attention.

But our attention span is limited. The written words, being abstract, force us to elaboration, even only to translate a word into a thought, and the thought into an image. Information obtained through images are absorbed without filtering, amassed passively pending assimilation.

Once being used to accept a passive behavior in front of information, maybe only out of tiredness, we turn incapable of elaborate the facts suggested to us. So we end up to select facts according to our own opinions, but opinions shaped before elaborating information, can only be prejudicial.

As a photographer, after avoiding for years to be involved in “politics”, I cannot be unaware of the damage that this careless usage of images is causing to civilization. I think to the Romani People, to the anti islamic prejudices, but to Naples too, and how much it has been damaged by the mythology of illegality built by Neapolitans for years.

This website, like my job, will keep being based upon the photos and videos I shoot, but will be mostly a blog, with more frequent posts about what I do and what I think, for words and images should be delivered together, to tell stories that take us back to thinking.